Releases

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! LP / DLX LP / CD in stores may 18

18 May 2018

Wide Awake! is New York’s Parquet Courts’ fifth record since their formation eight years ago.
The album is filled with Parquet Courts’ traditional punk rock passion, dynamic rhythmic propulsion and
exceptional songwriting yet explories new ground and influences from Grace Jones, Townes Van Zandt,
Parliament, Augustus Pablo to 80s American punk like Big Boys, Minute Men, The Dicks and Flipper.
“The ethos behind every Parquet Courts record is there needs to be change for the better, and the best
way to tackle that is to step out of one’s comfort zone’’ guitarist/singer A Savage says of the unlikely
pairing with producer Danger Mouse. ‘‘I personally liked the fact that I was writing a record that indebted
to punk and funk, and Brian’s a pop producer who’s made some very polished records.”
The songs, written by Austin Brown and Andrew Savage, are filled with their traditional punk rock
passion, as well as a lyrical tenderness, but are elevated to even greater heights by the dynamic rhythmic
propulsion of Max Savage (drums) and Sean Yeaton (bass).
Ultimately then the message contained in Wide Awake! is complex. “In such a hateful era of culture, we
stand in opposition to that — and to the nihilism used to cope with that — with ideas of passion and
love,” Brown says. For Savage, it comes back to the deceptively complex goal of making people want to
dance, powering the body for resistance through a combination of groove, joy, and indignation.
“Expressing anger constructively but without trying to accommodate anyone.”
Austin Savage says they played on the duality between rage and glee like Youth of Today, Gorilla
Biscuits and Black Flag. “I needed an outlet for the side of me that feels emotions like joy, rage, silliness
and anger,” For Austin Brown, death and love were the biggest influences. One of the most courageous
songs on the new record is “Death Will Bring Change,” a moving elegy, with a chorus not unlike the
Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” only this time, London’s Bach Choir were 15
twelve year olds from the upper east side recorded at 9am on a Saturday.
Album opener “Total Football” is named after the eponymous theory of soccer pioneered by the Dutch
that requires every player to be able to play every position on the field. It also has shout-outs to iconic
individualists the painter Cy Twombly, the poet Mina and sculptor Eva Hesse.
Titile track “Wide Awake” brings the band’s mission into full focus. It aims to achieve the deceptively
complex goal of making people want to dance, while powering the body for resistance through a
combination of groove, joy, and indignation.
The video, directed by Brother Willis and filmed in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, features the band,
clad in purple tuxedos, acting, well, wide awake. “I was very intrigued by the band’s idea to spend a few
days filming all around New Orleans during Mardi Gras,” says Willis. “Probably should’ve thought twice
about it, but we all came out the other side changed people and with a video (or more?) in our collective
pocket.” “You’ll never guess what happens next….” adds Parquet Courts’ Austin Brown.
Limited deluxe vinyl packaging includes dual booklets of original artwork by A. Savage, whose work on
Human Performance received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Recording Package.
The band return to Canada May 26 Montréal (Fairmount Theatre) and May 27 at Toronto’s Phoenix
Concert Theatre.

“The most exhilarating exercise from New York’s reigning indie-rockers laureate since their legendmaking
“Stoned and Starving” – as if you didn’t already have reason enough to be on high alert for Wide
Awake!”. – Stereogum

“An urgent, fantastic return that sees the band at the very top of their game, and more together than
ever”. – DIY Mag

Wide Awake! is Parquet Courts’ fifth record in eight years. It’s also their most ground breaking. It’s an
album about independence and individuality but also about collectivity and communitarianism. Love is at
its center. There’s also a freshness here, a breaking of new territory that’s testament to the group’s
restless spirit.

A1. Total Football
A2. Violence
A3. Before the Water Gets Too
High
A4. Mardi Gras Beads
A5. Almost Had to Start a Fight /
In and Out of Patience
A6. Freebird II
B1. Normalization
B2. Back to Earth
B3. Wide Awake
B4. NYC Observation
B5. Extinction
B6. Death Will Bring Change
B7. Tenderness